On the Morning of June 17th at 9:00 am, my Lucky hopped the fence and went missing. Between the phone calls, texts, emails, social media and driving around, I had about 25 people helping me find him in Dade County, Miami. By 11 pm, he’d been missing for 13 hours.
At 11:30 pm I got a call from someone telling me that a black dog was picked up by Miami Dade Animal Control at 7:30 pm. The woman sent me the picture that she saw on Animal Control’s website. That picture is on the right. I was 90 percent sure that it was Lucky, but that’s only because I know everything about him.
Does that picture on the right really do him justice? Not at all. Lucky actually looks like the picture on the left. How many other dogs and cats are waiting in shelters to be adopted or on death row because of a poor quality and blurry pictures?
That’s were HeARTs Speak steps in. The organization is comprised of 600 photographers spread across the US and 20 other countries. The photographers go into shelters with professional studio equipment and give the rescues the best chance possible of being adopted.
Each year HeARTs Speak increases the visibility of over 1 million shelter animals around the world. They are the first line of defense for the animals. Lisa Prince Fishler founded HeARTs Speak in 2009 based on her own experience in the adoption process with shelters. Even before the digital explosion the world has experienced in the last decade, Fishler knew that great pictures were the ticket out of shelters and into loving homes.
Friends, I’ve always felt a pit in my stomach for shelter animals. So much so that I’ve never had the courage to walk into a shelter until the morning of June 18th to pick up Lucky. I have been involved in rescues with sheltered animals and personally pulled many animals out of the streets, but never in a shelter until June 18th. I just find it way too heartbreaking.
HeARTs Speak understands people feel that way. That’s precisely why they go into the shelters for us and give the animals the exposure they need. HeART’s Speak even provides compassion fatigue counseling for their photographers knowing how emotional the experience can be. Keep Hearts Speak on your networks. They are an integral part of the animal rescue world.